Suppose An Eyes

Lady LucyJacqueline UtleyFlora Whiteley

19 September

to26 October 2013

An international touring exhibition that takes its title from American
poet, novelist and art collector Gertrude Stein’s modernist, abstract
text, Tender Buttons (1914), a group reading of which provided
the catalyst for the project. As the text approaches its centenary the
three artists are testing its relevance to contemporary art practice.
They have used it as a catalyst for discussions, cross-referencing
Stein’s textual abstraction with their own practices.

Lady Lucy takes her fascination with collected print material
into a new dimension as she looks at the source of her source material
in The Price is Marked inside the Book, a slideshow documenting
the last year in the shelf life of a soon-to-be-closed second hand
bookshop. Recent painting and drawing works employ layering and double
pictorial references in a sort of ‘battle’ of imagery.

Jacqueline Utley has used collage and watercolour as the basis
for her new series of small-scale oil paintings, which disrupt both
composition and judgements. In this exploration of possible
counter-narratives, she has used household furnishing catalogues of
rooms and observations of everyday found still-life objects/ornaments
and flowers.

Flora Whiteley looks to Stein’s usage of her own domestic
surroundings as the building blocks of her abstract writing. Applying
this approach to paintings and drawing on disparate images of interiors
and collections, whilst simultaneously using her paintings as
‘backdrops’ and ‘props’ she explores how objects in space create a form
of open ‘abstract’ dialogue with each other and the audience.

The exhibition tour started at Galerie Futura, Berlin (11 May –
14 June 2013) then travelled to Transition Gallery, London (20 July – 11
August 2013).

Jacqueline Utley: Recent group exhibitions include
‘Stardust Boogie Woogie’, Monika Bobinska, ‘Prognostic Bridewell’, APT
Gallery, London (2010). She was an exhibition finalist in the FringeMK
Painting Prize, Milton Keynes (2009). Her work was part of the group
show ‘BLANK PROMISCUITY’, Deptford X, London (2012).

Flora Whiteley: Recent activity includes ‘Better Place
Portraiture’ performed with Darren Banks at the Barbican, London
(2010), ‘The Nail, the Colours, the Mast’, co-curated with Tim Greaves
and Christopher Rollen, The Kotti-Shop, Berlin (2012), and ‘Luminous
Language’, Launch F18, New York (2013).